Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-11-04
THE CHOOSING OF SCHOOL OFFICIALS.


questions should not enter, it is that class
having charge of our educational sys-
TENS The question of fitness, intellectual
training, executive capacity, disciplinary
powers, knowledge of our educational
method and sincere devotion to it, ought to
be the controlling considerations in select
ing school officials 1t is noteworthy and de-
plorable that only occasionally have we
chosen trained educators to be Superin-
tendents of schools There is every rea-
son why none others should be selected for
such important trusts.
Men or women should be called to these
high offices because of special fitness for
educational yocations. They might be ex-
eellent merchants, successful lawyers, quail
fed physicians, thorough mechanics, and
have first-class clerical ability, and yet be
wholly untitled for the peculiarly delicate
and exacting duty of experimenting a
great school department and maintaining
1T at high stage Of efficiency
Why We should employ blacksmiths to
repair jewelry, veterinary surgeons for
family physicians, carpenters for the count
ing-room, or lawyers for school disciple
narians, no one will essay TO answer. Yet
the calling of any man TO duty foreign to
his training, habit and usual vocation is
at the risk Of receiving Indifferent service
and is no more absurd than TO put at the
head of school department officials who
have had no recent, or any experience in
systems of education.
Political scheming, not the reason and
good Judgment of men, suggests for educa-
tional trusts those who have no trained
fitness for them. Very often-and of this
fact no successful denial can be made-the
educational supervisory posts have been
filled by men for apparently no better
reason than that there was no other place
with which to satisfy their political de-
maHds; or to supplement an already estab-
hshed income and business with the reve-
nue. of the office; or, for reason more
humiliating still, to make stepping-stone
out of school trusts for further political
advancement Of ambitious men.
1t is not likely that any sensible man
will undertake to deny these statements.
Nor yet will any reasonable person sug-
gest the absurdity that those foreign to the
duty should be called to supervise school
systems lying at the root of all our liber-
ties, and upon which, in very great de-
gree, is dependent the character of our
citizenship and of our civilization, in
preference to those who have had long ex-
perience in schools as teachers or super.
yisors of teaching-in preference to those
who not only have the knowledge by ex.
Perience, of the demands and needs of the
system, but are abreast with the advanced
thought of the day in the matter of con
Quoting our schools.
Sacramento is about to choose a School
Superintendent. The RECORD UNION has
no candidate and will have none; but it
has convictions as to the properties in
choosing the new Superintendent, and il
has no hesitancy in declaring, as it has be-
fore this, that the party should be trained
educator and something more than
clerk to the Board of Education.
He or she should have no other yoca-
tion,. should have at least some hard
experience in teaching, and not now
be so far removed from the past as to for
get the days of pupilage. The School
Superintendent ought to be one moving on
level with the best educational senti-
ment Of the age; one who keeps himself or
herself informed thoroughly upon all edu-
cational advancement and propositions. but
sho is not running off with every new.
tangled idea because of novelty or newn ess.
If the RECORD UNION could have its
way, the choosing of person to superin
tend the school system of the city for the
next term would be chosen irrespective of
political influences, and with an eve single
to educational fitness, executive ability and
reasonably advanced ideas. The political
boss should have no voice in the choosing.
he never, even as a matter of policy, selects
for any other than an Interior purpose, and
his candidate never is or can be wholly
free man. The truth is we devote very
much less care and discrimination to the
choosing of our Superintendent
our teachers, for the matter of that-than
we do the selection of our cooks. If bank
corporations selected fnanciers, railroad
companies their superintendent, aud in
surance unions their actuarics with the
iooseness and carelessness which charac-
terize our choice of school officials, those
businesses would presently run to ruin. At
least as much fair business sense ought to
enter into the proposition to employ a
superintendent to oversee the three-score
and more of teachers and the several
thousand school children of the city, and
to fashion, keep symmetrical and make
effective in the highest degree, the local
school system, as we call to our aid in
selecting clerk, a bool1keeper, or an
agent to conduct and supervise private
business.
1t may not be done now, but it is easily
possible for this community to rise to the
level of right selection in this matter of
supervising the schools. 1t ought to be
done now, and if the people are awake to
their own interests they viii do it in the
coming month, and put the schools of the
city under the superintendent of an edu-
Gator whom the teachers will respect If not
fear, and whose training and experience
will be guarantees of fitness. There are a
good many such to be found. There is
indeed, no difficulty at all IN picking out
half dozen men or women. anv one OF
whom would come up to the requirements
named. The only questions are, viii po!i..
zeal bossism and the autocracy of ring
dom permit it; or will the political parties
ignore them and give us candidates on
both sides, if we must have party nomi-
nations, that viii result in a good choice
no ma who - Iafaoto,i3